A man from al Mayadeen city in the eastern suburbs of Deir Ez-Zour governorate, named as Fahd Abdul Karim al Hammadi, was arrested by Syria regime forces in 2017 while he was passing through a checkpoint in the Badiya (desert area) of Tadmur city in the eastern suburbs of Homs governorate, on his way from al Rukban IDP Camp, located at the Syrian-Jordanian border in the east of Homs governorate, to Raqqa city. Since then, he has been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying any knowledge of his arrest and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On November 15, 2020, SNHR received information confirming that he had died in custody. Our data from numerous sources confirms that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture in a detention center in Damascus city.
SNHR has received confirmation that Syrian regime forces failed to hand over his body to his family; this is standard practice for the regime, with the bodies of the majority of detainees who die in its detention centers being disposed of through mass cremations. Since the whereabouts of these prisoners’ remains is unknown and they are not handed over to their relatives, they continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared.
SNHR notes that at least 14,269 Syrian citizens have died due to torture in Syrian regime forces’ detention center.
